首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Many things make people think artists are weird—the odd hours, the nonconformity, the clove cigarettes. However, the weirdest ma
Many things make people think artists are weird—the odd hours, the nonconformity, the clove cigarettes. However, the weirdest ma
admin
2013-01-15
45
问题
Many things make people think artists are weird—the odd hours, the nonconformity, the clove cigarettes. However, the weirdest may be this: artists’ only jobs are to explore emotions, and yet they choose to focus on the ones that feel lousy. This wasn’t always so. The earliest forms of art, like painting and music, are those best suited for expressing joy. But somewhere in the 19th(上标) century, more artists began seeing happiness as insipid, phony or, worst of all, boring. In the 20th(上标) century, classical music became more atonal, visual art more unsettling.
Sure, there have been exceptions, but it would not be a stretch to say that for the past century or so, serious art has been at war with happiness. In 1824, Beethoven completed his "Ode to Joy". In 1962, novelist Anthoy Burgess used it in A Clockwork Orange as the favorite music of his ultra-violent antihero.
You could argue that art became more skeptical of happiness because modern times have seen such misery. But the reason may actually be just the opposite: there is too much damn happiness in the world today.
In the West, before mass communication and literacy, the most powerful mass medium was the church, which reminded worshippers that their souls were in peril and that they would someday be meat for worms. Today the messages that the average Westerner is bombarded with are not religious but commercial, and relentlessly happy. Since these messages have an agenda—to pry our wallets from our pockets—they make the very idea of happiness seem bogus (假的). "Celebrate!" commanded the ads for the arthritis drug Celebrex, before we found out it could increase the risk of heart attack.
What we forget—what our economy depends on our forgetting—is that happiness is more than pleasure without pain. The things that bring the greatest joy carry the greatest potential for loss and disappointment. Today, surrounded by promises of easy happiness, we need someone to tell us that it is OK not to be happy, that sadness makes happiness deeper. As the wine-connoisseur movie Sideways tells us, it is the kiss of decay and mortality that makes grape juice into Pinot Norway need art to tell us, as religion once did, that you will die, that everything ends, and that happiness comes not in denying this but in living with it. It’s a message even more bitter than a clove cigarette, yet, somehow, is a breath of fresh air.
How could the economy depend on our forgetting things?
选项
A、The economy would not be boosted if everybody were satisfied.
B、There are many new products designed for the forgetful.
C、People will spend more money if we believe in easy happiness.
D、We pay heavily for forgetting things easily.
答案
C
解析
参见原文最后一段的第1句:我们所忘记的——我们的经济正是依赖于我们对此的忘记——是,快乐并非仅仅就是没有痛苦的愉悦。言下之意,人们认为快乐是没有痛苦的,是可以轻易地获得的,即,快乐可以轻易地买到,而我们的经济正依赖于此。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/gI2O777K
0
考博英语
相关试题推荐
IntheUS,psychologistsatanumberofuniversitiesaremakingaseriousstudyofhowrumorsareborn,howthey______andhow
Thehumanbraincontains10thousandmillioncellsandeachofthesemayhaveathousandconnections.Suchenormousnumbersused
ItwasanormaldayinthelifeoftheAmericanRedCrossinGreaterNewYork.First,partofabuildingonWest140thStreet,i
Duringthefaminemanypeople______eatinggrassandleaves.
Thedoctorwasaskedtogobacktothehospitalbecauseof______case.
Thinkaboutwhatwouldmakeyoureally,reallyhappy.Moremoney?Wrong.Smiling,well-adjustedkids?Wrongagain.Thefactisw
Mostpeoplecanrememberaphonenumberforuptothirtyseconds.Whenthisshortamountoftimeelapses,however,thenumbersa
Itisfrequentlyassumedthatthemechanizationofworkhasarevolutionaryeffectonthelivesofthepeoplewhooperatethene
AstronautJimVosshasenjoyedmanymemorablemomentsinhiscareer,includingthreespaceflightsandonespacewalk.Buthere
Somecells,suchasepithelia,proliferatemorerapidlywhenthebodyisasleepthanwhenitisawake.
随机试题
IP地址的编码采用固定的______位二进制地址格式。()
房地产交易的基本制度中,()不仅关系着当事人之间的财产权益,而且也关系着国家的税费收益。
设备采购监理的监理资料应包括()内容。
合理调节作业速率的方法主要有()。
甲公司只生产一种产品,产品单价为10元,单位变动成本为6元,产品销量为2万件/年,固定经营成本为4万元/年,利息支出为2万元/年,甲公司的财务杠杆系数为()。
依据《继承法》规定,转继承人必须是()。
关于公文签发的权限,说法不正确的是()。
以太网100Base-FX标准规定的传输介质是()。
Afterathree-yearsurveyofthesocialandbehavioralsciences,acommitteeoftheNRChasconcludedthatthesesciencesarelo
(1)Paulwasdissatisfiedwithhimselfandwitheverything.Thedeepestofhislovebelongedtohismother.Whenhefelthehadh
最新回复
(
0
)